the tanks. He was a dreamer and
visionary, and his fellow-officers laughed at him.

"A few tanks are no good," he said. "Forty or fifty tanks are no good on
a modern battle-front. We want hundreds of tanks, brought up secretly,
fed with ammunition by tank carriers, bringing up field-guns and going
into action without any preliminary barrage. They can smash through the
enemy's wire and get over his trenches before he is aware that an
attack has been organized. Up to now all our offensives have been futile
because of our preliminary advertisement by prolonged bombardment.
The tanks can bring back surprise to modern warfare, but we must have
hundreds of them."

Prolonged laughter greeted this speech. But the Celtic dreamer did
not smile. He was staring into the future... And what he saw was true,
though he did not live to see it, for in the Cambrai battle of November
11th the tanks did advance in hundreds, and gained an enormous surprise
over the enemy, and led the way to a striking victory, which turned to
tragedy because of risks too lightly taken.

XII

One branch of our military machine developed with astonishing rapidity
and skill during those Somme battles. The young gentlemen of the Air
Force went "all out" for victory, and were reckless in audacity. How
far they acted under orders and against their own judgment of what was
sensible and sound in fighting-risks I do not know. General Trenchard,
their supreme chief, believed in an aggressive policy at all costs, and
was a Napoleon in this war of the skies, intolerant of timidity, not
squeamish of heavy losses if the balance were tipped against the enemy.
Some young flying-men complained to me bitterly that they were expected
to fly or die over the German lines, whatever the weather or whatever
the risks. Many of them, after repeated escapes from anti-aircraft
shells and hostile craft, lost their nerve, shirked another journey,
found themselves crying in their tents, and were sent back home for
a spell by squadron commanders, with quick observation for the
breaking-point; or made a few more flights and fell to earth like broken
birds.

Sooner or later, apart from rare cases, every man was found to lose his
nerve, unless he lost his life first. That was a physical and mental
law. But until that time these flying-men were the knights-errant of the
war, and most of them did not need any driving to the risks they took
with boyish recklessness.

They were m